My Scumbag System - Chapter 312

Chapter 312: The Gacha Banner At The End Of The World
“In Greek mythology,” I continued, drawing on memories from a past life, “Hercules had twelve Labors. Odysseus had a ten-year voyage filled with monsters and temptations. They were heroes, sure—legends that survived millennia. But they were also victims of the gods’ whims. They suffered and bled and lost everything they loved, all to entertain Olympus. All to give the divine audience something to watch while sipping ambrosia.”

I leaned forward, ignoring the fire that blazed through my ribs at the movement. “What is the endgame, Nel? What’s waiting at the end of all these trials? Am I here to conquer this world, to build an empire of power and pleasure? Or am I being fattened up for a sacrifice? A hero’s journey that ends with the hero’s head on a divine chopping block?”

The silence stretched so long that I thought she might not answer. Seconds ticked by, marked by the steady beep of medical equipment that suddenly seemed very loud. When she finally spoke, her voice had changed. Deeper. Older. Carrying echoes of something vast and ancient and terrifying.

“You are the Protagonist, Satori. The Protagonist always suffers—it’s the price of the narrative, the cost of being central to a story worth telling. The gods demand blood and tears and broken dreams because those are the ingredients of compelling entertainment.”

A pause, heavy with unspoken meaning.

“But the Protagonist also gets the chance to kill the Author.”

My blood ran cold, ice crystallizing in my veins despite the warm hospital air. “What the hell does that—”

A massive notification suddenly overrode my vision, blotting out the room entirely with gold light. Apollo’s voice boomed in my head, loud enough to make my teeth rattle, resonating through my skull with divine authority:

“So suspicious! You wound me, truly! Here I am, pouring resources into your development, ensuring you have every advantage, and you repay my generosity with paranoia?” His laugh echoed like thunder in a marble hall. “I just want you to be the best version of yourself! Is that so hard to believe?”

The Gacha Store interface opened automatically, forcing itself into my consciousness with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The accumulated notifications—forty-seven unread messages I’d been studiously ignoring—condensed into a single, gleaming banner that pulsed with hypnotic light:

[LIMITED TIME OFFER: The Mythical Pantheon Banner]

Cost: 1,000 SP

Guarantee: One [Mythical] Tier Item/Ability derived from the Greek Pantheon

I stared at the banner, watching the golden text shimmer and dance, practically begging me to press the purchase button. Then I looked at my SP count: 1,215. More than enough to afford this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“This is a trap,” I said aloud, the words hanging in the air like an accusation.

“Obviously,” Nel replied, her normal voice returning with something that might have been relief or resignation.

“You’re trying to distract me from asking about the Author. About what’s really going on here.”

Apollo’s laughter filled my head again, bright and shameless. “I’m trying to make you stronger! Isn’t that what you want? Power? The ability to protect what’s yours, to crush your enemies, to build the empire you’ve been dreaming about?”

Images flashed before my eyes—memories or visions or divine manipulation, I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Natalia collapsing in the dungeon after pushing her new power too far, blood streaming from her nose as her Aspect tore at her neurons. Emi nearly being skewered by a tendril of darkness, her healing aura flickering as she faced something beyond her ability to fix. Skylar’s eyes in the moonlight when she thought I was going to die, the cynicism stripped away to reveal raw, vulnerable fear.

My heart rate spiked, the monitor beside my bed beeping frantically as my pulse climbed. The medical equipment registered my distress, but the alarms were distant, irrelevant compared to the images burning themselves into my brain.

“Fuck you,” I growled, the words tearing from my throat with more venom than I’d intended. “You’re manipulating me. Showing me exactly what I’m afraid of, making me want this power just to protect them.”

“Of course I am! That’s what gods do!” Apollo sounded positively giddy, delighted by my resistance even as he worked to overcome it. “But I’m offering you power derived from MY family. Mythical tier, Satori. Do you understand how rare that is? One in ten thousand pulls under normal circumstances. A guarantee like this doesn’t come along every millennium.”

I looked at the purchase button, glowing with invitation. I knew it was bait—a shiny lure designed to distract me from the conversation Nel and I had been having. Apollo was playing me like a fiddle, dangling toys to keep me from asking the questions that mattered. Questions about my role in this sick game. Questions about what ‘killing the Author’ actually meant.

But goddamn it, I needed power.

Whatever game the gods were playing, whatever fate they had planned for me at the end of this narrative, I needed to be strong enough to flip the board when the time came. Strong enough to protect what I’d built. Strong enough to rip the script apart and write my own ending.

“Fine,” I said, the gambler in me taking over, that part of Kaelen Leone that had survived countless impossible odds by betting everything on the right moment. “You want a show? Let’s see what the gods are selling.”

I pressed the button.

The room exploded with golden light.

It poured from every surface, from the walls and ceiling and floor, from the air itself as if reality had caught fire. The windows rattled in their frames, glass vibrating with harmonic resonance. The medical equipment went haywire, monitors flashing error codes and alarms blaring as the power surged through circuits that were never designed to handle divine energy.

My SP counter dropped in my peripheral vision:

1,215 → 215

A thousand points of divine favour, consumed in an instant. A fortune spent on a single gamble.

The light condensed into a single point in front of me, collapsing inward like a star going supernova in reverse. It spun faster and faster, particles of golden energy spiralling around a central axis until they formed a sphere about the size of a baseball. It hovered there for a breathless moment, pulsing like a miniature sun, warmth radiating from its surface to wash over my damaged body.

Then it exploded outward.